Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Hello Project 52

Project52 is a personal challenge geared toward getting fresh content on one’s website; the goal being to write at least one new article, per week, for the year.

Welcome fellow Project 52’ers!

As you know, we’ve banded together to motivate ourselves to actually (gasp!) write in our own blogs. To actually put content…up.

Shame, shock, horror - doesn’t everyone perpetually blog?

Answer: No - not if you have a life.

Some of us have to be prompted, shamed, encouraged, lead by a carrot on a stick, and if not, then beaten with that stick.

Writing can be the most frustrating thing in the world. It can also be the most transformative thing too - but part of the process is getting past the “have. to. write”-pressure and setting one’s thoughts free. Perhaps this initiative is a good thing - I’ve already written two posts this month, as well as half-built a new portfolio website. Procrastination is falling by the wayside, and co-incidentally my intake of Nespresso is on the rise.

(Hmmm - Nespresso. Say what you want about Nestlé, but they’re doing the Nespresso brand the way it should be.)

Anyhoo - it’s motivation, and all motivation is good.

So I hope to see you, fellow Project 52’ers, here and there. Check out the Google Groups Project 52 discussion and if you like it, come join us. I expect this to take shame some time, as we all learn from each other and create communal threads (perhaps every week a new discussion point might be fun..)

And off we go!

Via Project 52...

Posted by Admin on 01/05 at 12:36 PM
Posted in: Project 52  
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Friday, January 01, 2010

2010 - now is the time,,,

I’m looking forward to 2010 with a mix of excitement and apprehension. Happy, not an equal mix. 

Let’s cover apprehension first: I’m a web developer, and unlike many of my peers I’ve worked with only 2 big companies over the past 10 years, not hop-skipping from one job to the next. There are pluses and minuses on both sides, but for an American, moving to another country - different language, different work/life mix, different mindset…different everything - the best thing to integrating into a culture (aside from marrying someone there) is getting stuck into a company.

The thing is - as a non-EU citizen, you need to have the company sponsor you. That means them navigating the changing channels of immigration policies, tax credits and financial barriers, etc. Very few are inclined, unless you possess a skill that is in need, and happily web development is such a skill. The problem is, ultimately, you can be too jacketed in a company, especially when they know you can’t actually leave without leaving the country as well.

I’ve been fortunate in my first two companies - the initial group were tied to government and big business, and could move glacially slow, but we were asked to always innovate and so we went from FrontPage websites to Flash (yes, sorry, it was 2000) and up to Broadvision and Documentum-based sites. The latter also goes to show that often large organizations are moved to change not by needed technology but by valued partnerships. Documentum, a great package for document storage and archival, can’t make a website without considerable back-end programming. Ultimately we moved on to a smaller application, ExpressionEngine, that did more than either of the previous powerhouse efforts - but only with major management changes.

The next jump went to a company who has long-since run fast and actively tried new technologies, but it too suffered from politics and internal wrangling. I came to work on the EE platform, and while I (and others) could try many options, the final choice of Wordpress was made long ago, for reasons long since invalidated. So, considering the number of css developers alone who can mark-up a WP template, it’s no surprise they no-longer do new development in-house - far too expensive. Still, you grow and learn, and they were fantastic people to work with—one of the few groups I’ll genuinely miss.

So here I stand - where to next?

I love the Netherlands, but they’re often more management-driven than solution-driven. Do I work for another company? Do I start out on my own. My heart says the latter, but previous work habit instills apprehension, and that can divert energies. Must. Stay. Focused.

Where to next…that’s the $2010 question…

Posted by Admin on 01/01 at 11:59 AM
Posted in: Idle Chatter   IT notes   Project 52  
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